Operation Phoenix

Chapter Thirty-Five: Nine Months and the Current State, Pt 1

They spent nine months apart.

Each day seemed to drag on and on, like time had slowed just to make their stay there even more excruciating. In the first month both Hiccup and Rapunzel lost an inordinate amount of weight, accenting the bones on their hips and the tendons in their hands.

Playing King Black was a little harder than both of them had thought it would've been. To keep up the facade of 'giving each other away', they needed to stay in contact, and when they hadn't seen each other for periods of time as long as weeks, it didn't exactly make it easy. Meg was helpful enough with that, though both Rapunzel and Hic did their best to exclude her from their planning as much as possible—for fear of her getting caught and killed. However, due to their 'good behavior' (basically giving each other away, though all of their accusations happened to be fake) they were moved into the building where other 'good' workers inhabited.

Hiccup and Rapunzel we're "giving away" so much about each other, that King Black felt he didn't need to bug their rooms at all. He thought both of them didn't know that the other was selling them out, that they were clueless about one another's accusations—when that wasn't the case at all. Black thought he had them wrapped around his finger, when in all actuality it was the other way around. Their actions still directly effected each other, which meant they were moving up the scale fast due to their cooperation with King Black's questions about one another.

Whenever he would find out about a false plan that Hiccup or Rapunzel made up, he would burst into the accused's room and ransack the place, taking whatever item either one of them had planted for King Black to gullibly gulp up and swallow. He assumed his hostages had no idea how he was getting the information, he assumed that they were on their toes and always looking over their shoulders—which they were, but not because he was inflicting it. They were looking over their shoulders because they were thoroughly and successfully playing him like a fiddle.

Everyday Rapunzel would go to work, to her lab where a Sickly would be strapped to a table and snapping at her while she cut at its skin. She'd attempt to perform tests in order to find out what made the creatures practically immortal. She knew why King Black wanted her to do this, he was hoping for the same result as Dame Gothel. He wanted to rule his District—basically all four of them—forever. However, the longer she took the more angry he became. So much so that during a particularly hard shift, King Black had ordered for Ursula to release the straps holding the Sickly down, and when it lunged at Rapunzel while she was completely unprepared she'd panicked. She'd pictured her friends, smiling and laughing. She'd seen Merida, awaiting in whatever next life, she'd pictured Hiccup talking to her while he smirked tinkered on whatever mechanics he was using—like they did back in Peak District, confiding in each other for comfort—and finally she'd pictured Jack, staring at her with his blue eyes and smiling with the corner of his mouth quirking up ever so slightly while he enveloped her in his embrace. Zel had been so entranced, she'd almost forgotten about the Sickly on top of her, snapping its jaws together. With a yell she yanked the ballpoint pen out of her pocket and jammed it into the creatures eye. When it finally fell, completely lifeless, she'd shoved it away and backed up against the wall, only finding the will to duck her head into her arms and cry.

Ursula had told her it was only beneficial of her to hurry up with her experiments, to avoid another situation like that.

The only person that comforted her was a woman named Toothania, who worked there and disapproved of King Black's methods. She helped fudge the numbers when Valka was stealing food. Tooth found Zel when she had been sitting, her arms wrapped around her knees and shaking while tears dripped periodically down her face. Everyone had already gone back to their rooms, and when Tooth noticed that there was someone still there she went to check if everything was okay—obviously it was not, but the woman made sure that Zel had everything she needed and got back safely. They'd been close ever since.